Eyesight to the Blind
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: Her friendship with Sherlock was an odd one. "So... that's Sherlock. He comes and goes." Post-series two Sherlolly "novella".
1. Chapter 1

_**(Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sherlock. No copyright infringement intended.  
**_

_**This is going to be a small ficlett- three, maybe four chapters at the most. Mostly Sherlolly nearly drabbilish-scenes, leading up to an ultimate conclusion. **_

**_The title: Really has nothing to do with anything. I was stuck on a title for this, and when I get stuck, I usually flick through my record collection, and I came across an album with this song- Eyesight to the Blind, and after listening to the song again, decided I liked it. If anyone can guess what it's a reference to, I'll do... something. Possibly just love you forever, possibly something more._**

**_This is nearly crack-ish in it's humor, and I hope you guys like it.)_**

* * *

_**Eyesight to the Blind**_

**..**

The house was blissfully silent as Molly closed the front door behind her, leaning back against it. It was finally over. After more than a year, Sherlock was "alive", and her life was her own again. No more lying to her friends, no more deflecting visits from family, no more dealing with Sherlock Holmes.

She'd decided, after the first week, that John Watson deserved a medal. And she intended to give him one, as soon as he began speaking to her again.

Nearly the entire day had been spent down at New Scotland Yard, giving statements, detailing her involvement. She'd been assured by Sherlock that she wouldn't get into any legal trouble for helping him, and she wasn't sure how he pulled it off, but she'd walked away unscathed, job intact. She could barely believe that it was really over; Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's right hand man that Sherlock had spent this past year trying to take down, was in jail; Sherlock Holmes was back in 221b Baker St., sawing away at his violin, and soon he'd be back to solving cases.

Whether he'd be solving those cases with Dr. Watson was still to be seen. John had been summoned to the Yard by Lestrade, and after seeing his best mate, who'd he had assumed to be dead this past year, he had knocked Sherlock on his ass with a right hook to the jaw. Sherlock had done nothing to defend himself; after John had helped him to his feet, he had given Sherlock what looked to be the most awkward hug in history. The good Doctor had barely spared her a betrayal-filled glance as he'd brushed past outside Lestrade's office; likely he'd been remembering the emotion-laden coffee's they'd shared, the times when he'd come to the hospital to just spend time with someone he'd thought was mourning the loss of the detective nearly as much as he was.

It all weighed on Molly's conscious, but the relief she felt and the removal of the weight that had settled around her shoulders for the past year vastly outweighed that guilt right then. The only thing she was looking for right then was a full night of violin-less, possibly toxic experiment-less, cantankerous consulting detective-less sleep.

**..**

_This is becoming tedious, _Sherlock thought as he slipped through the window of the first floor bathroom of the house on Wakefield Street. The house was nearly as dark as the night he'd come in from, silent save the steady whir and occasional groan of a house at temporary rest. He moved through the bathroom, passed the old claw-foot tub and through into the short hallway that lead to the kitchen where he'd sat for numerous meals during the year he'd resided with Molly.

Sherlock moved into Molly's darkened sitting room and stood in front of her bookshelves for a split second before he began carefully disrupting Molly's neat alphabetical organization. He was horribly bored, not a new case all afternoon, and lately when he was in this type of mood, his favorite way to attempt to amuse himself was to break into Molly's house and subtly muss her nearly anal retentive housekeeping. Just to see how long it would take her to notice. He could time it nearly down to the minute, at which point he would be waiting, phone in hand, for her indignant message. It had been great fun at first, but the pleasure was wearing off.

After he'd moved the M's next to the S's and the B's were spread between the L's and the V's, Sherlock moved to the fireplace and began moving things around on the mantle. A photograph of Megan's parents (mother and father, _not _her mother and the step-father) was switched with an odd sculpture of a bird and a framed photograph of John Lennon was swapped with a rather alarming bright pink ceramic elephant. Not nearly satisfied, Sherlock removed a portrait of Alice falling down the rabbit hole, which, Molly had informed him, was from Lewis Carroll's _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. _Sherlock had been oddly grateful when she hadn't mocked him for not knowing the novel, and had loaned him her own copy. It had taken him only a few hours to read it, after which he haggled on erasing it from his mind, or hanging onto it. In the end, he'd retained the information, just in case Molly brought it up again.

This decision he refused to pick apart and examine as he normally would. Absolutely refused.

Sherlock rigged the framed print to hang upside down behind the television. A glance at the clock hanging above the mantel told him that Molly would return home shortly, and so he took a seat on her teal sofa in the dark of the sitting room. Soon Molly's all black tabby that he'd renamed Edmund leapt onto the sofa and folded herself comfortably against Sherlock's leg, purring contentedly. He absently scratched the cat behind the ears, and waited.

It was later than usual when Molly left Bart's, nearly nine p.m. She'd gotten caught up with the mountains of paperwork that her colleagues didn't seem to ever bother with, and it wasn't like she could just _leave _the files sitting about like they had been.

She took the train home, nearly sighing in relief when she let herself in her front door, happy to be in the calm quiet of her house. Moving through the dark sitting room, Molly went directly into her bedroom. She flipped on the light and dropped her bag onto her bed before toeing out of her sensible brown shoes, discarding her rumpled slightly baggy clothing. Comfortable in her own home and skin, Molly gathered a clean set of pajamas and moved back through the sitting room and felt her way down the hall to the bathroom.

Her back was cramping after hunching over her desk for the past few hours, and the hot water cascading from the shower was a near miracle for her muscles. Water and soap suds swirled down the drain as Molly washed the day away and then pulled on her purple sleep shorts and tank top. Wanting nothing more than to relax, Molly hung the wet towels over the shower curtain rod and left the bathroom, steam billowing behind her.

The house was dark and quiet as Molly moved through it and into the sitting room, intent on collapsing on the sofa and watching a bit of mindless TV before bed. She made it halfway through her collapse before she realized that she was collapsing on _somebody _instead of her comfy sofa.

A small shriek climbed its way out of her as she jumped up and darted across the room, slamming the light switch on and whirling around.

"Damn it, Sherlock!"

"You really should be more vigilant. I could have been some sort of maniac."

The man was sitting placidly on her sofa, giving her a very disapproving look. Her cat was lounging against him, eyes half closed, tail waving lazily.

"You _are _some sort of maniac." Molly moved back to the sofa and sat on the end opposite him, heart still hammering in her chest. "How did you get in?"

"How I always get in. Through the bathroom window." Sherlock leaned back, dark hair clashing with the bright teal of the sofa.

"Come here, Toby," Molly said, trying to get her cat to come to her. The animal just looked at her contemptuously and snuggled further into Sherlock's side. "Why _do _you always come in through the bathroom window?"

"Because your door is always locked, obviously." His eyes were closed now, and he tutted a little before shaking his head.

"Oh, right. Obviously." Molly curled her mostly bare legs under her and reached for the remote that sat on the painted black coffee table in front of her. Clicking on the TV she settled on a sitcom before relaxing back into the cushions.

After moving back to Baker Street a little more than a month before, Sherlock had continued to be a regular staple in Molly's life, much to her surprise. She'd assumed that everything would be like it had been before; the only times she would see him would be when he needed something from Bart's. He wasn't there constantly, days would go by without a single word from him, and then suddenly he would be there, barging into the lab or morgue, or climbing through her bathroom window for a visit. Molly found that he added a certain lively splash to her routine, one that she welcomed most heartily; as long as he wasn't living with her.

Her friendship with Sherlock was a strange one. He rarely spoke of himself, and getting him to come away with any personal information was a bit like pulling teeth. She knew that he had an older brother and that his mother was the only surviving parent. She got him to almost reluctantly admit that when he did eat, Chinese was his favorite, and that he never ate while he was working on a case, claiming that it slowed his thought process. He had a morbid fascination with historical crimes, most especially gruesome murders (he claimed to have discovered the real identity of Jack the Ripper, and solved the Black Dahlia murder (a famous American unsolved crime) by reading only newspaper clippings) and rarely read nonfiction novels.

These were things she'd wheedled out of him over the year they'd lived together and the subsequent month worth of between-case dinners, lunches and the occasions he would come to her house, sometimes claiming that his thoughts flowed at a pitch perfect stream while sitting in her bathtub. When she'd asked him if it was like mobile-reception, certain places were better than others, he'd merely shaken his head at her and closed his eyes. Molly had shoved a rolled up towel under his head and left him there, sitting with his legs stretched out in her claw-foot tub; his shiny black shoes propped on the lip, surrounded by scented bath products and one yellow rubber duck.

Now they sat on her sofa, Sherlock still with his eyes closed, Molly watching _Will and Grace_, finger combing her hair, rather comfortable with each other.

Until Sherlock opened his mouth and said, "Why do you have a goldfish tattooed on your left buttock?"

Molly's fingers froze where they'd been carding through cascading light brown hair, remembering how she'd walked naked through the house on her way to the shower. "You were sitting there the whole time? And you didn't say anything?"

Sherlock's eyes cracked open, and he slid his gaze over to her. "I was bored. The tattoo?"

"You have _got _to stop breaking into people's houses."

"I don't, normally. Only yours." Molly wasn't sure if she should feel special or not. "The tattoo?" he repeated.

Molly sighed, blowing her hair out of her face. "I hate goldfish."

"… and so you tattooed one on your posterior? I don't understand. Why do you hate goldfish?"

She shrugged. "They always die. I can never keep the damn things alive. I much prefer cats, they live longer."

Sherlock scoffed lightly. "How hard can it be to keep a simple goldfish alive?"

"I'd like to see you try it."

"I could."

"Please, Sherlock. You can barely remember to feed yourself."

"I don't _forget _to feed myself, I don't _forget _anything. I merely don't unless it's strictly necessary."

"Sure, sure."

They lapsed into silence again. After a few minutes, Molly stood and left the room, retrieving the little bag from the bathroom that she kept her nail polishes in. Propping her feet on the coffee table, she painted her toenails, veritably zoned out on the TV. Sherlock was still resting with his eyes closed. Until Molly grabbed his left hand from where it was laced with his right resting across his stomach and painted the nail on his pinky lime green, matching her toes.

"What _are _you doing?"

Molly wiggled her drying toes. "You're not the only one who gets bored."

Sherlock glowered at her as she finished the hand and let drop onto the sofa. Then he re-laced it with the other, and grumbled something that sounded like, "Ridiculous woman."

Molly cleared the mess and returned to the sitting room.

"I'm turning in."

There was an absent hum from the man on the sofa, before he stood, buttoned his suit jacket and swept passed her, down the hall and to the bathroom. She heard the window slide open, and then close. Molly shook her head, and moved to turn the lights off. As she walked passed her bookcase, she noticed Mansfield's _The Dove's Nest: and Other Stories_ was next to Salinger's _Catcher in the Rye _and frowned, before looking around the sitting room. That's when she noticed the print behind the TV, and grit her teeth together.

"Damn it, Sherlock!"

**..**

Sherlock was halfway down Wakefield Street when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He smirked as he read Molly's indignant text before saving it with the others. Sherlock stepped from the sidewalk and hailed a cab, completely forgetting that the nails on his left hand were painted lime green.

**..**

When Molly showed up at 221b St. two days later, it was with a gift. She rang the bell and stepped back, waiting for Mrs. Hudson to answer. She took the steps up to the flat two at a time, the skirt of her yellow, red and blue striped knit dress flouncing around her knees, carefully balancing the load in her arms. Since Sherlock couldn't seem to bother even using her front door, she walked in without knocking, greeting John as she walked through the sitting room and into the kitchen, dumping her burden onto the table next to where Sherlock was sitting, peering into his microscope.

He ignored her as she began pulling things out of the large bag she'd been carrying; a glass bowl, a plastic bag filled with small rocks and a jug of filtered water. When she upended the rocks into the bowl, Sherlock slid her a sideways look wondering what in the hell she was up to now. It had been incredibly awkward for John, asking Mrs. Hudson to borrow a bottle of fingernail polish remover at nearly midnight the night before. He finally leaned back from the sample he'd been examining when she began dumping the water into the bowl, and Sherlock knew _exactly _what she'd done.

"No, Molly."

Molly paused, hand still in the bag where she'd been rummaging. "No what?"

"I am not keeping a goldfish just so you can prove a point."

"Yes, you are."

Sherlock glared at her as she proceeded to finish setting up the goldfish bowl. Finally, she moved the entire thing from the table to the counter next to the sink and began to shove the trash from the rocks and other paraphernalia into the large bag she'd toted everything in.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Molly looked up at Sherlock from where she'd been shoving the bag of trash into the kitchen trash can. "What?"

Sherlock sighed. "The fish?"

"I'm not stupid, you know. You're coming with me to get it."

He narrowed his eyes at the woman, who he'd noticed had her hair pulled off her slender neck that day. "No, I am not."

Molly shoved the can back inside the cabinet it was kept in, and stood up, brushing her hands off. "Yes, you are."

"I'm far too busy to go off-"

"John?" Molly asks loudly. "Has Sherlock done anything other than stare into that microscope all morning?"

"Not a thing!" John shouted back, and Sherlock's scowl deepened.

"Come on, it's not going to kill you," Molly told him, already moving toward the door.

"It _could,_" Sherlock grumbles, standing from his stool, following her. "Any number of things could happen."

Molly just sighed as she waited for Sherlock to pull his suit jacket over his purple button up.

**..**

It began to rain while they were in the cab returning to Baker St., gray clouds stamping out the previously beautiful June day. Inside the car was quiet, Sherlock on the left, hand wrapped around a clear plastic bag with a large goldfish swimming lazily inside of it, Molly on the right, remembering their trip to the pet store and how angry the shop owner had been when Sherlock had asked him how long he'd been illegally trading endangered animals to wealthy hunters.

They'd paid for the fish and Molly had pushed Sherlock out the door before the owner could possibly do something crazy, like shoot her companion.

**..**

The air in Molly's small kitchen was tense and silent save for the quiet clink of cutlery against china. Molly always dreaded the bi-monthly dinners with her mother and step-father, which for some reason always took place at her house, instead of their home on the other side of the city. It was clear they had been fighting again; Mrs. Lawson, nee Hooper, nee Ruston was already on her third glass of wine, and Mr. Lawson had been abnormally silent.

Molly was slurping spaghetti noodles at an alarming pace, trying to get this meal over as quickly as was humanly possible.

Her mother had been at odds with her step-father for as long as she could remember them being together. Her mother never seemed happy with anything Michael had ever done, and her step-father, for the most part, attempted to comply in silence. Molly just wished that they would do everyone a favor and divorce, but here they were nearly ten years on and the word had never been mentioned once, as far as she knew. Instead of voicing this opinion, though, Molly took the easy route and simply knuckled under when it came to this familial responsibility.

She was eyeing her mother as the older woman poured her fourth glass of sweet red when she heard a noise from the bathroom. The distinct sound of the window sliding shut had her mom and Michael looking that way, and just a few moments later, Sherlock strode into the kitchen.

He was clearly frazzled, his dark hair nearly standing on end and his suit jacket was missing. The sleeves of his black button up were rolled to his elbows. Toby immediately streaked into the room and began rubbing against Sherlock's black clad legs. He didn't blink once at her company, Molly's parents frozen in their seats.

"Molly, I require the use of your bathtub," he informed her before stooping down to scoop Toby into his arms. "Come, Edmund." And then he disappeared from the doorway and they all heard the bathroom door open and close before all fell silent. Molly found herself squirming under her parent's dual stares.

"So… that's Sherlock. He comes and goes," she told them before stuffing her mouth with another bite of pasta and sauce.

**..**

When she'd returned home from the hospital late the next night, Molly had stripped out of her clothes and shoes and had fallen immediately into bed, and would have slept soundly all night if she hadn't been woken a mere two hours later by one of the throw pillows from her sofa colliding with her head. Molly shot up in bed, disoriented, only to groan and fall back to her pillows when she saw Sherlock sitting across the room. His long body was ridiculously disproportionate to the small pink chair that sat at an angle toward the foot of her bed, and Molly glared at him through half-slotted eyes.

"What do you want, Sherlock?" Molly's voice was thick with sleep, and she rolled over, pulling her comforter over her head before he could answer.

"I'm leaving."

This made Molly freeze, and then push the covers away again. She propped herself up on her elbows, and looked at the man sitting in her bedroom. "Leaving?"

Sherlock inclined his head in a nod.

"What kind of leaving? Like… _leaving _leaving, or going on holiday leaving?"

"More like Mycroft can't trust his own secret service and requires me to clean up a mess for him in some remote third-world country, leaving." His voice was melodious rumble in the otherwise quiet room.

Mycroft was his brother, and… wait. _His _secret service?

"What _exactly _is it that your brother does?"

Sherlock merely smirked at her, and left her question unanswered. "Can't say how long I'll be gone, but John is staying behind this time, if you need anything."

Molly nodded, and then he was gone, closing her bedroom door behind him. She collapsed back into bed, pulling the covers around her shoulders, thinking about the way her heart had lurched when he'd said he was leaving.

* * *

**Author's Note: Hope you liked it! **

**The new chapter of Teeth in the Grass is in-progress, hopefully up in the next few days. **

**Some folks are hosting _The_ _Sherlolly Awards, _if there are any stories you'd like to nominate (I'm trying to be subtle here) head over to www (dot) youdocount (dot) weebly (dot) comcom .**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

_**(Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sherlock. No copyright infringement intended.)**_

_**Eyesight to the Blind**_

_**Two**_

Three weeks had passed since Sherlock had woken her in the middle of the night to tell her that he was off on some clandestine mission, and Molly was bored out of her mind. She tried to tell herself that her current state had nothing to do at all with the absence of her friend, but she'd laughed at herself immediately after. Of _course _her discontent had to do with Sherlock; he was the most interesting person in her life. She'd thought that after the year in which they'd been forced to cohabitate she wouldn't miss him after he was gone, but she'd been wrong. Not that she missed him commandeering her house by any means, but she _did _miss the easy friendship they'd formed since.

Ensconced, as she normally was on Friday nights, in her closet-sized office deep in the bowels of St. Bart's, Molly wanted nothing more than to be at home and in her shower, followed immediately by a night of snuggling on the couch with Edmu- Toby. Her cat's name was Toby, _not _Edmund.

The day had not been a good one, starting with her arriving late for her shift at the hospital, coming to a glorious end with her splattering spleen juice all over herself not thirty minutes ago during a routine autopsy, hence the desperate need for a shower. She'd scrubbed herself as best she could without stripping down and showering right there at the hospital, which she only did in the direst of circumstances. Right then she was rushing through her paperwork (she couldn't just _leave _it like everyone else did, she told herself, as she did at the end of every working day.) anxious to finally be out of there.

**..**

The next morning was a wonderfully slow one as Molly realized she had that evening off; her first Saturday off in nearly two months. She rolled over in bed and stretched, smiling at the sunlight filtering through her bedroom curtains. Spring was slowly giving way to summer, and soon they'd be entrenched in the humid days of that season. Molly remained in bed far longer than she ever would have on a work day before finally literally rolling out of bed and shuffling toward the sitting room, beyond that the kitchen, and even _further _beyond that, the coffee pot.

She was nearly through her bedroom doorway when she realized that the wonderful scent of coffee already filled the house, and her mind registered the back of the curly dark head she could see from her vantage point behind the sofa.

Sherlock was back.

Molly fell onto the couch next to him, yawning. Edmund (_Toby, _she thought) was curled up on Sherlock's lap and there was a mug of coffee on the table in front of him.

"Is there any more coffee?"

A noncommittal "Mmm," was the only answer she received, so Molly rolled her eyes and dragged herself off the sofa and into the kitchen. There was indeed nearly a full pot on the burner and after she fixed herself a mug, she rejoined Sherlock on the sofa.

Molly yawned again, and looked over at Sherlock who was now sipping steadily from his mug. "How long have you been back?" she asked, taking a large gulp of her own.

"About an hour," Sherlock mumbled, setting his mug down, slumping back against the couch.

Curling her legs up on the sofa, Molly hugged her coffee to her, nearly finished with her first cup. It would take many more to get her up to functioning capacity. "I missed you while you were gone," she told him. "It's terribly dull around here without you."

"Much to my surprise," Sherlock said, "I found that I missed you as well."

Molly smiled a little to herself, leaning back, closing her eyes. When it was quiet for several minutes, she cracked an eye open and looked over at Sherlock and found him fast asleep. Edmund (_Oh might as well, _she thought.) had crawled halfway up Sherlock's chest and was curled contentedly, tip of his black tail flicking the end of Sherlock's nose.

**..**

When Molly returned from her shift at the hospital late Monday night, she found Sherlock sitting in her kitchen at the table.

"Have you moved back in?" she asked him jokingly after she'd discarded her shoes in her bedroom.

"Not hardly. John is having that woman over again." Sherlock sounded clearly put-out.

"Mary?"

"Whoever."

"Sounds like they're getting serious."

Sherlock merely grunted and went back to staring at the table top.

"Are you hungry? I didn't have a chance to eat at the hospital, and I'm starving." Sherlock didn't answer, but she correctly interpreted this silence as his affirmative silence. Molly used half a loaf of bread making French toast; she and Sherlock ate in companionable silence, flatware clinking against plates, fingers sometimes kissing around the neck of the syrup bottle.

"Who buys your suits?" The question was an unexpected one, even to Molly who'd asked it. But it was something she'd wondered about before; she just couldn't picture Sherlock shopping for clothes. She couldn't picture Sherlock shopping for _anything_. The image of him deliberating over whether to buy white socks or black, the blue shirt or the purple was laughable.

Sherlock looked up at her, swallowing around the alarmingly large bite of fried bread he'd shoved into his mouth. He cleared his throat before answering. "Mummy."

"Mummy?" She tried not to giggle, honestly she did.

"Yes, my mother. The one I unfortunately share with Mycroft."

Molly hummed a little, smiling, twirling the tines of her fork through the puddle of syrup on her plate. "Remind me to write her a thank-you note for the button-ups sometime."

"I don't understand."

"Didn't expect you to."

**..**

Sherlock was still wondering over Molly's strange comment about his shirts when he heard her footsteps mounting the stairs to 221b. She must have had the day off as she was dressed nicely in an orange and cream striped shirt and tan trousers, and not in the dowdy clothing she wore to work at the hospital. Her hair was loose around her shoulders today, a fact that Sherlock was oddly grateful for.

He sat at his kitchen table, scraping a sample of the gelatinous inside of a dead man's eyeball into a Petri-dish, when she entered. He watched her move around his kitchen wordlessly while feigning interest in the samples he was now separating from the original optical mass. For a reason that evaded him, Molly began straightening his kitchen, stacking dishes in the sink, clearing the countertops before she moved to the table and began tidying the objects around him. He affixed a bit of his sample between two small glass panes of a slide and snapped it into place in his microscope.

"Oh, Sherlock!" Molly suddenly cried. "You've killed Steve!"

Sherlock didn't look up. "I did not. I took these samples after he was already dead- as you know, I rarely kill people. And how do you know his name was Steve?"

"Not the eyes, you dolt. The fish!"

"What fish?"

At her sigh of exasperation, he finally looked up, and then from her to the murky glass bowl she was staring at. Oh, _that _fish. Molly disappeared from the kitchen, taking the bowl with her, and a few moments later Sherlock heard the toilet flush. Upon reentering the kitchen she emptied the rocks that were clinging to the bottom of the fish bowl into the trash and stacked it with the dirty dishes in the sink. Sherlock moved on, pushing the fish from his mind again. It was a _fish_. _Honestly_.

Sherlock returned to his study, and Molly returned to her bizarre cleaning. He heard the refrigerator door open and waited for the cry of disgust that he usually received over the jar of tongues or the bag of thumbs, and was inexplicably pleased when he heard none. He should have been able to predict Molly's reactions with relative ease, as many years as he'd known her, but she'd always remained an unknown variable. Something which admittedly both frustrated and intrigued him. Sherlock looked up to see that she'd pulled the garbage bin over to the refrigerator and was tossing out what he assumed was spoiled food, and neatly arranging his various experiments around the remaining eatables.

Sherlock hadn't realized that he'd been staring until Molly asked, "Sherlock, why are you staring at me?"

"Your hair looks lovely today." Sherlock frowned; he had no idea why he'd said that. He was sure the puzzled expression on Molly's face matched his own.

He didn't have much time to wonder about it, though, as a few moments later, he had a very enthusiastic Molly Hooper plastered to his front, her lips moving over his.

* * *

**Author's Note: I would like to point out that I do very little research. Minimal effort is the way I roll. That being said, I really don't know the work schedule of a pathologist working at St. Bartholomew's Hospital would really play out, so take it easy on a poor soul when it comes to the fine details, yeah?**

**Thanks to Adiba, lilin08, Juze, Petra Todd, IvPayne, Mione W.G., Elle, PrometheusDavid'sGirl, Nocturnais, Hellscrimsonangel, beautyqueen24, allofmyheart, littlelollypop and barus for their reviews on chapter one! **

**Hope you-all liked the second chapter, even if it does seem a bit OC to me, and thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter of **_**Teeth in the Grass.**_

**Give it some love?**


	3. Chapter 3

_**(Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sherlock. No copyright infringement intended.**_

_**Again, I didn't do any research for this, so if I've gotten anything wrong, medically, forgive me.)**_

_**Eyesight to the Blind**_

_**Third and Last**_

**..**

His previously steady heartbeat sped to a gallop that thundered in his ears as Molly kissed him. Actually, he believed the expression was _thoroughly snogged_ him. It couldn't be described any other way. Her small hands gripped his shoulders, and Sherlock was still frozen, half turned toward his microscope, hands gripping the cool metal of the instrument. Surprising himself completely, Sherlock found himself returning Molly's kiss. He wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to be doing with his lips, but Sherlock attempted to mimic Molly's motions.

When she pulled back, Sherlock noted that Molly's brown eyes were dilated; pupils blown-black. Her chest was heaving with her breaths and Sherlock cleared his throat as he attempted to get his elevated heart rate under control. The simple slide of Molly's hands from his shoulders down to his chest made Sherlock's skin tingle where she touched, and he was momentarily concerned by the physical reaction, before moving it to the back of his mind for now; he'd research it later. Molly patted his chest, and then moved back.

"Thanks for that." When she spoke, her voice was what could only be described as _breathy. _

Sherlock remained frozen on his stool as Molly gathered her bag, and left the flat, bounding noisily down the stairs as she always did. Mind whirring, Sherlock leaned back, and crushed his thoughts down to words of one syllable: what in the hell had that been?

**..**

As she did on most Saturday nights, Molly found herself the only living person in the morgue. She was going through her list at a steady rhythm, and Mrs. Marylyn Remus was the one currently on her table. The poor dear had dropped dead the day before at only forty-eight, and now it was to Molly to find out why. The young pathologist would bet all of the money in her bank account that it was a brain aneurism, which was why she was currently sawing the top half of the late-woman's skull off.

"- honestly, who _kisses _their best friend and then just walks away?" she was saying to Mrs. Remus, voice raised over the whine of the surgical saw. The habit of talking to the deceased when she worked long shifts alone was one she'd had for several years now. She wasn't too concerned over the health of this behavior; only if they started talking back would she begin to worry.

"It's his fault I was there in the first place! If he hadn't gone and been so damned marvelous, I wouldn't have begun wanting him again. And if I hadn't realized I'd begun wanting him again, I wouldn't have scrubbed everything in my flat until I'd run out of thing to clean, and then I wouldn't have had to go to _his _flat for something to scour my frustrations out on." Molly huffed a little, completely satisfied with her rambling logic as she switched off the electric saw. Carefully, she removed the top of Mrs. Remus's skull, and began searching for evidence to back up her aneurism theory.

"Anyway," she said, gloved fingers gently probing the spongy-brain, "it's too late for us to go back to just friends. I don't think I _could_. And I can't stomach the thought of returning to our pre-friend state." Molly sighed, prodding the lesion with a latex-covered forefinger. With an elbow, she flicked on the hanging microphone and verbally recorded her findings before switching it off again, and attempting to return Mrs. Remus to her pre-sawed state. After she'd closed up the refrigerated drawer, Molly peeled off her blood smeared gloves and dropped them in the bio-hazard bin, and pushed the protective glasses she'd been wearing up to the top of her head. She sat at her desk and began adjusting her list, before leaning back and sighing again.

"So I should just go for it, right?" she asked the empty room. In the end, she answered herself.

"Right."

**..**

If Sherlock were given a choice of five words to describe his current state, they would be: confused, strangely-smug, discombobulated, mildly-bored and unsettled. Technically, it was more than five, but Sherlock had always been one for bending the rules. To put it simply, he had absolutely no clue what was going on.

Why had Molly kissed him? It had been rather obvious, before his "death" and subsequent lying-low in Molly's home, that the doctor had fancied him. Sherlock had thought, up until four days ago, that those particular feelings on her part had gone, though, leaving them merely friends. As alien as he was to human mannerisms, he didn't think it was customary for women to kiss their friends in that manner, be the friend male or female. Men certainly didn't; he could just imagine the look on John's face if Sherlock were to randomly snog him. Quite the amusing mental image that was. But still, it wasn't _done_.

The evidence that had been presented upon that Wednesday afternoon led Sherlock to believe that Molly's romantic feelings toward him had returned. This line of thought turned Sherlock's attention to himself. What were his… his… _feelings_ for Molly? Was it possible? Could it be true that he had somehow managed to come to return those romantic _feelings_?

He thought of the things he'd been noticing lately; it was a given that Sherlock saw quite a bit, but as of late, he'd been noticing _odd _things about Molly. Like how pretty she was in bright colors, how soft her hair was when it happened to brush against him. How pleasant she smelled, and how her eyes seemed to sparkle when she smiled, _really _smiled. These were all things that, under normal circumstances, he did _not _notice. These were things of little consequence. But he couldn't deny the fact that he _had _noticed them, and that when he did there was an odd _fluttering _sensation somewhere in the middle of him.

He thought of how he'd been inexplicably drawn to touching her. When her hair was pulled up, his fingers itched to touch the nape of her neck. When she was filling out forms in the lab or in the morgue he wanted to trace the small bones in the back of her hand. When she bit her lower lip, a habit she seemed to have when she was flustered, he wanted to touch the small cleft between the said bottom lip and her chin.

He thought of what his life would be like if she weren't in it. It would certainly be much darker, drearier. He wouldn't have access to the morgue or the lab when he wished it. But it was also _more. _For one thing, he would be dead right now if it weren't for her.

Sherlock shook himself as his mobile went off in front of him on the coffee table, pulling him from his thoughts. He sat up on the sofa where he'd been sitting and grabbed it, seeing that he had a text from the woman who occupied so much of his mind as of late.

_Molly: Come around for dinner tonight? If you're not on a case, of course. _

After he answered that no, he wasn't on a case at the moment, and yes he would come around, Sherlock tossed his phone back down and stretched out on the sofa. The brown leather was cool and cracked against his back, through the material of his dressing gown, and Sherlock flexed his toes against the arm of the sofa. The matters of Molly Hooper and feelings would take much more consideration.

**..**

They sat at Molly's small kitchen table and ate Chinese take-away with only the slightest twinge of awkwardness coloring things. Molly was certain that it was all on her part; she couldn't imagine Sherlock ever being awkward. Cartons of food were grouped in the middle of the table, and Molly had pulled down plates and set out forks. She always made a horrible mess of things if she tried to use chop-sticks and she really didn't like eating out of the cartons that the food came in. Sherlock, she'd discovered, didn't really care one way or another. When he decided to eat, he would consume nearly anything you put in front of him, no matter how it was delivered.

After the last grain of rice had been eaten, and the last dumpling speared (by Sherlock), Molly steeled herself. She'd made a decision the night before, and she was going to follow through with it. Molly pushed her plate away and wrapped her hands around her glass of ice water, the cold liquid chilling her fingers in seconds.

"Sherlock, erm." The man sitting across from her cut his eyes her way from where he'd been staring out the window above her sink. "I was just wondering... uh. How you felt. About me, I mean." Condensation beaded from the glass and over her fingers, and Molly wiped them nervously on her trousers.

"What do you mean?" Sherlock's pleasing baritone was oddly quiet in the small kitchen.

"What am I to you?" Everything inside of Molly was rioting; her heart was in her throat, stomach somewhere around her feet, her nerves were making her slightly dizzy with somewhat hopeless anticipation. She internally shook herself; _he had kissed her back. _

Sherlock cleared his throat, and looked away. "There is not a word."

_What exactly is _that _supposed to mean? _Molly wanted to ask. Instead, she pushed her chair back and stood, collecting the containers of food from the table. She tried her hardest to ignore the presence of the man sitting at her table, but it was impossible. She couldn't have been more aware of him if he'd been standing directly behind her, breathing down her neck. Molly sealed the containers of Chinese food and set them in the fridge, nerves beating inside of her like butterflies. She didn't look at him as she collected dishes from the table and dumped them in the sink, flicking on the hot water and adding soap. Molly could feel Sherlock's eyes on her, though, watching her as she plunged her hands into the scaling dish water, scrubbing dinner plates.

Suddenly, she whirled around, narrowing her eyes at him. "What in the hell is that supposed to mean, exactly? _There isn't a word_. What do you mean?" Soapy water dripped from her hands that were clenched into fists at her sides, spattering onto the white linoleum floor.

Sherlock looked clearly hesitant when he spoke. "There is not a word in the English language that I could use to describe what you are to me."

Molly's heart flip-flopped in her chest. She took a deep breath. "Try."

"I spent a lot of time today thinking about what my life would be like without you in it." Sherlock had dropped his stare from her to the table-top, and he was currently glaring at it as if it were the cause of the world's problems. "And the conclusion I came to was that if you were to _not _be in my life, to cease to be a part of it, I would feel as though I'd lost a rather significant part of me. Almost like losing a part of my very physical being."

Molly thought about trying to pick a spot to interject, to chime in, but she couldn't find one. Once Sherlock was on a roll, there was really no stopping him.

"Were you to disappear from my life and take with you your rather disgustingly happy disposition, your hair that smells like vanilla and lemons, Edmund, your bathroom, the smell of this very kitchen, the silence that seems to take over my mind just _sitting _with you, it would be like someone cutting out my kidney. Or my heart-"

Here, she did cut him off. "So, you're saying that… I'm your heart?"

Sherlock did look at her then, coloring slightly as if just realizing what he'd revealed. "I… suppose I am."

An alarmed expression crossed Sherlock's face as Molly began to cry. Fat tears that she didn't bother brushing away rolled down her flushed cheeks, and she just stood there, dripping water all over the kitchen floor. And it was much to _Molly's _surprise when Sherlock stood from the table and began to leave the room. She took a few rushed steps forward, sliding on the puddle of dribbled water, catching herself on the edge of the kitchen table.

"Where are you going?"

He hesitated in the doorway. "I've clearly upset you, so I'll just-" his words were cut off when she grabbed the crook of his elbow and turned him around. Or _tried _to turn him; she wouldn't have gotten too far if he hadn't been cooperating. Molly flung her arms around his neck, and stood on her tip-toes, pressing against him.

"Oh, you stupid man," she mumbled just before pressing her lips against his a second time.

This time, though, Sherlock placed his hands on the small of her back, and returned the kiss with fervor.

* * *

**Author's Note: So that's the end of that. Well, kind of. There will be one more update on this story, and outtake, if you will. Just a little something to earn this little ditty its rating, if you get my drift. **

**Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed and it would be awesome if you could show this nearly sickeningly sweet Sherlock and Molly some love! **


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